26/04/2021
On the other hand, I would like to thank you, Dave Clarke, for many things, one of many, and in chat, you always listened to what I sent you, you never made a distinction, Thanks to you too, I didn't stop,
Another Anniversary....... this time White Noise 800.....
My radio journey started when I was young in my pretend radio station with my mono tape deck and microphone recording seven inch singles interspersed with me introducing the next record using the pause button as an imaginative 10 year old.
My first real foray into real radio was with Festival Radio in Brighton in the early 90's , Captain Sensible showed up at one show (as a Damned fan this was immense) and my dog Tek opened his bowels at another due to the insane bass my brought in sound system had (Bigfoot is still for sale actually somewhere in Sussex) which not only caused this unfortunate spillage but the police at the door in their wooden hats. I do have to thank Daniel for not only putting up with this ridiculous behaviour but encouraging my continued presence in his yearly line ups, he then got me broadcasting in London in Tinpan Alley for a London version of Festival Radio.
From this I did a few stand in shows on Kiss FM London and also on Radio One with "The Truth" (Danny Rampling kindly let me borrow his set up as the studio set up was still very Smashy and Nicey) .....from that I stood in for Annie Nightingale for 13 or so weeks after her holiday , having long, some say too long, show crossover talks with Westwood, he was actually fun, looking at a Detroit record playing backwards with complete confusion. Apparently I was on the "substitute" bench there until another Radio One DJ with "power" said there was no space for Techno on R1. At the time it hurt, but I feel it was better for my career in retrospect.
Luckily my tenure ended the week before the Princess Diana accident happened (it would have been the time I was broadcasting).....and also the stress of getting to the studio was difficult with gigs, sometimes getting there 4-5 mins before it started (this was before GPS).
Then I went back to Daniel from Festival Radio and I did the show "Technology" which was broadcast on the internet, which in the late 90's was quite cutting edge, and on various European stations including Studio Brussels.
I stopped so that I could record my second album "Devils Advocate" on Skint and then a few years later got asked by Gerard to record a show on VPRO. I agreed and started "White Noise" and was happy to find out that I was following in the footsteps of Peel who also broadcast in there, we even found reel to reels of his shows which I went through to use in a show dedicated to him.
My time at VPRO was mostly fun, originally it was a 2 hour show and featured sets from many many DJ's, from the late Andrew Weatherall to Marea Stamper as Lady Foursquare, and hundreds in between, I even did live broadcasts at various festivals like Sonar (which Devo gladly gave Silvy , my then producer, permission to broadcast their set, I have their signed photo framed in my bathroom of fame), I broadcast John Foxx from The Paradiso and many other events happened with the support of Gerard and the team, I also enjoyed working with Peter who always did my "zero dc offset request", however after seven odd years of broadcasting (and pi***ng off a news reader who shouted at my team as he could not read the news in the studio easily as the bass was too much.....at least he didn't empty his bowels like my dog did) I decided I had to leave, I may have been the only one on 3fm who had carte blanche on the playlist but it just wasn't for me anymore.
I didn't want to give it up so I changed it's format to an hour, no-one needed to have an hour of a dj set anymore when you can find it on soundcloud etc and now it's home base is RTE 2fm in Dublin (it is also broadcast weekly on over 100 radio stations worldwide).
So long story but hey 800 episodes is a long time in anyone's life.
Thank you to every artist that sends me music still, thanks to every artist that gave permission for their live sets to be broadcast or sent in specially recorded dj sets, thanks to RTE 2fm for having faith in me (and also broadcasting The Saga, my alternative radio show) thanks to every other radio station for broadcasting it, and thank you to those that have read this far, that must mean you are a listener and care.
White Noise 800 will be broadcast at the end of the week (please check your local station for details or go to whitenoiseradio.net for podcast links)
Photo by Marilyn Clark ADE 2015
(I write this as I listen to de portables...a discovery that secret Ajax supporter 3voor12 Stephan V P helped me get in contact with as they were friends, and I miss Gerard's musical tips too)